The D7100 has face recognition in LiveView mode, but in PDAF mode it has something called "subject recognition", which basically picks out the closest object that appears different from the background.

LiveView autofocusing is glacially slow, and although LiveView face recognition can detect up to 35 faces and select the closest from amongst them, there's no guarantee that it will focus on that subject's near eye, only that it'll find a face and make the entire face reasonably in focus.

You're trying to substitute the camera's automatics for your own manual control of focus point in a situation that really is beyond the intention of the D7100's face recognition (precise focus on a particular part of a subject's face with a thin DOF lens), and that's not how the D7100 really wants to be operated. Particularly if you want to focus FAST - which requires PDAF, or something like a Series 1 or, I hate to say it, one of the mirrorless cameras, perhaps even the Canon 70D, all which have extremely responsive LiveView autofocusing.

If you're willing to live with subject detection AF through the viewfinder, you can get fast AF, but not with the selectivity that you're desiring.

Thanks for the answer. I currently shoot with a canon 5d mk11. Because I shoot with the camera rotated 90° as I photograph a lot of people individually. Canon has very focusing spots and I tend to use the three that are on the right-hand side when you hold the camera in a normal manner. Those three focusing spots tend to be not very sensitive. I can manually rotate through all the focusing spots by using one of the rotary dials.

Since the autofocus based on what you're telling me on the D 7100 seems to be very quick, I assume that I can manually pick out spots on the focusing grid. Is that correct? In that manner I can manually use those focus spots put over the nearest I of the subject. You think that will work. The reason I am looking into DD 7100 is because I am hoping that the focusing spots around the perimeter are more accurate than what the Canon has. The Canon edge focusing spots tend to be hit or miss, especially when the camera is rotated.

So if I am not able to use the facial recognition on the autofocus through the viewfinder, if I can still use it in the same manner that I am using my Canon by manually selecting the autofocus points, that is fine. As long as the focus points are more accurate than what the Canon.Once again thanks for any answers.

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